#not really a spoiler? just a hypothetical

[lilpatison]

“…𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯, 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰.”

“𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝙢𝙚, 𝘈𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭.”

[nyipi]

I love unrequited love like mad and all the apology tour fanart but alastor ship ver. are great, i eat them up like spaghetti but if i ever see genuine critique on alastor (ace, implied aro) for not liking the other character back and putting blame on him -> it's block on sight 😊

I eat hanahaki fics for breakfast, the guilt-trippy nature in apology tour isn't my problem. if the guilt-tripping is just for a tasty narrative, i'm good,

my problem is if it actually reflects your belief that the aro/ace character is at fault while the other half of the ship is a precious baby for catching feelings and did nothing wrong.

I don't want genuine blame being put on the aro/ace character for just, not being able to give what the other wants. It sends me into a spiral of feelings i cannot explain as an aroace.

[edwinisms]

I feel like it’s like. a ridiculously huge plot hole that not a single person in the group questioned what the fuck happened to niko in the finale. like. they automatically jump to “she moved on to her afterlife” when that makes zero sense and is literally impossible from what they saw happen in front of them. you’re telling me the boys who have been running from death for 30 years wouldn’t instinctually feel a pang of panic knowing that she should be showing up any minute to collect niko. and they wouldn’t notice that, for some reason, she doesn’t. not a single person questioned why they never saw niko as a ghost. esther even says something like “so what, you’ll just have another ghost friend” like it was POINTED OUT and no one thought a damn thing even when they’re all craned over her body and sobbing. even when they’re going through her apartment and packing her things. it wouldn’t occur to anyone? was whoever wrote this part half asleep or in a huge hurry to get the script done or something because it’s possibly the most egregious plot hole in the entire show

[tofixtheshadows]

hi!! so there are a lot of improbabilities that make this hypothetical unlikely but: if kabru had met toshiro first & recruited him (toshiro being so passive + not with a clear goal would have helped there & kabru is ptsd-driven but very noble in his goals which can be explained) AND they got all the way down to the bottom (idk if i believe in them...but hypothetically!) would the winged lion find either of them to be a good target for next dungeon lord? one over the other? im thinking kabru has the intensity and complexity of desire necessary but i can't imagine what it would look like if he became lord of the dungeon. do you have any thoughts?

Good morning. This is a very fun thought experiment!

(side note: I got a second anon this morning with a very similar request? not sure if related. I'm gonna let this answer speak for both of them)

Toshiro sure would have had a different time of it if Kabru had gotten to him first, huh? On the one hand, Toshiro seems to like Kabru; I think it's sweet that Kabru seems to gravitate towards hanging out with him when he isn't with the rest of the main cast. So they probably would've been good in a party together.

On the other hand, Toshiro never would have met Falin and fallen in love with her. Even if she didn't reciprocate in the end, I don't think he regrets anything that happened. Even his difficult friendship with Laios was ultimately positive (for both of them!).

They definitely would not have made it to the deeper floors, I think Senshi is crucial to achieving that ... but this is a hypothetical.

I'm puzzling over the question of Toshiro, because he is a secondary character and there's only so much we know about his motivations. His big one in canon is to save Falin, even if it means all he can do is put her to rest. Without that, without her, what sort of desires does he have?

Toshiro originally came to the Island because of a demand from his father: for one of his three sons to find "something interesting" enough on their travels to bring back home that would convince their capricious bastard father to make them his heir over the others. So they're all off on their separate training journeys with their respective retainers with the added caveat that they can't return without something to impress their father. It's implied that after falling in love with Falin, Toshiro had wanted to bring back home a wife.

Since he's said to inherit the family after he returns home without her anyway, I've been assuming that the "thing" Toshiro ended up bringing to Toshitsugu Nakamoto was the story of the dungeon, the demon, and his friend Laios, king of a risen country and Devourer of All Things Horrible.

Anyway, the things we know about Toshiro's home life are kind of fucked. It's amazing he turned out to be so nice. He's always been a shy, sensitive person, and he was sickly as a child; Maizuru cared for him despite her spymaster duties and ended up filling a motherly role for him, even though Toshiro's mother is still alive. Historically, it wasn't uncommon for noble children to be raised more closely by their governesses/household retainers than their parents, so perhaps something similar was happening here (disclaimer that I don't know much about feudal Japan specifically).

We know that Maizuru loves Toshiro and dotes on him, but she's also very strict and frankly terrifying; she used the same Hag summon that she was monitoring Izutsumi with on Toshiro as a child just to keep him from wandering off. We also know that when he found out that Maizuru was having an affair with his father, it put a distance between them. Whether this is because he felt betrayed on his mother's behalf or because he dislikes his father that much, or something else, is unclear.

Toshiro was childhood friends with Hien, but as they got older, she had to take his place as one of his retainers, which seems to have severed that closeness. Canonically, he isn't close to his two younger brothers either. Toshitsugu literally bought Inutade and Izustumi (the latter as a drunken "gift" for Maizuru!). We see that Toshiro is uncomfortable with this, but doesn't know how to approach the issue. He lets Izutsumi go the second she's out of sight for five minutes, which implies to me that he really wanted the excuse to do so. Inutade is harder, because she loves being with the Nakamoto family and hero-worships Toshiro's father.

...all this to say, Toshiro has complicated relationships with his family and household. There's love there, but also a lot of coldness enforced by the upper-class need for propriety. Toshiro falls in line and acts as the proper stoic samurai, but he chafes at this; he envies Laios's gift for feeling and expressing things openly and readily. I think that's what the Winged Lion would prey on, given the chance.

I don't think he would be prime dungeon lord material, but if it came to that, I could see the Lion tempting Toshiro with a kinder vision of his life, one where he and his little brothers weren't pitted against one another, where his family was warmer, where there weren't barriers of class between him and his retainers, where he was allowed to be more himself.

Now ... Kabru.

Kabru is interesting because, since his ultimate goal is to seal the dungeon and eradicate monsters, I imagine that meeting a demon would be like a guy who's given a genie and wants to wish for no more genies. And if said genie is trying to take over the world via wishes, the genie is a bit screwed. I really think that Kabru is the character who would stump the demon(s) the most, despite his complex desires, because they are antithetical to the demon. Laios also had complex desires, but the Winged Lion lured him and set him up as the hero of a fake prophecy because a lot of Laios's desires revolved around monsters, so his wants aligned perfectly with the demon's methods. Oh you want monsters? That's great, they're the things I use to solve most of my problems anyway.

Even in the absence of prior knowledge of demons, I think Kabru's back would be up as soon as the Winged Lion tried speaking to him. Kabru's insight is almost preternatural, and he's well-versed in persuasive speaking thanks to his own silver tongue. He would mistrust the Lion immediately, especially considering its monster-like form.

Giving the demons bestial appearances is an artistic choice on Kui's part, so I don't think there's any indication that the Winged Lion & co can't look human, but the Lion might have been constrained both by Thistle's seals on it and the need to maintain the lie that it's just the innocent guardian deity of the Golden Country. If it could, I think it would try to look less monstrous, with Kabru.

Still, the point of the demons, I see, is that anyone can be tempted, anyone can be manipulated, because we are all full of buried desires that can be unearthed, and wanting things and having to defend them make you susceptible to manipulation.

Consider what Mithrun told Kabru: they keep the knowledge of demons secret because knowing the truth would not stop people from trying to have their wishes granted. After all, Mithrun was a Canary, but he fell for its temptation anyway. I've seen people characterize this as a sort of rock bottom decision, and maybe that's true, but I also pin it on his toxic inferiority/superiority complex. That's exactly the kind of thing that makes you think you're built different.

Would Marcille have stopped before unsealing the Winged Lion if Mithrun(/Kabru) had actually gotten to sit down with her for five minutes and explain why becoming dungeon lord would be a very bad idea? Maybe. Or maybe her desperation, and her own pride, would have made her decide that she knew better, that she'd be careful, that she'd go in with a plan and definitely get what she wanted with no dire consequences.

I think Kabru could be desperate enough to make a similar decision, even if his desires were antithetical to the demon. And the demons have an advantage over the aforementioned genie simile: their ability to eat desires.

If the Winged Lion were smart, it wouldn't let Kabru seal it away like Thistle. Given the opportunity, its best chance for dealing with Kabru would have been to immediately eat his desire to stop another Utaya.

I'm gonna plug this wonderful and tragic little one-shot someone wrote recently about the dungeon lord Kabru hypothetical: This place is not a place of honor.

[nat-without-a-g]

Lowkey terrified that the oak twins are going to end the show with nothing but each other and ultimately that might be the worst if not most suiting horrific twist of fate

[mabaris]

the thing I’m very interested to see is Harding’s relationship to other dwarves as her weird magic manifests.

she’s a surfacer; I feel like no matter what happens, Orzammar dwarves are going to point at her as an example, saying, “this is what happens when you lose your stone sense, you basically become a human, and this is why you should stay underground because we’re safe down here”

[ladytoallthelambs]

A bit of a lil silly 2003 bad ending au I’ve had floating around in my brain for a while

[chungledown-bimothy]

mechanical question- Tula is an Oath of Redemption paladin. The first tenet is peace- "Violence is a weapon of last resort."

Based on Tula obliterating a motherfucker for hurting Viola, there's no way she doesn't go full Punisher if Jaysohn or Lila dies in Last Bast, right?

Would that make her an Oathbreaker or Oath of Vengeance? Or is it fully up to Brennan how he'd want to play it?

[puhpandas]

Abby is shown interacting with the other kids more at the end of the movie so it’s possible that she could meet Gregory later on in the second or third movie!!

man I hope so but I also think Gregory being a special case related to getting in trouble with authorities would fit and it would be a good lead up to meeting Vanessa (a cop, but I wouldn't be suprised if she quits her job since theres a good chance it was a cover up for william).

imagine vanessa is getting back on her feet but still heavily traumatized from what happened at freddys but also just her life leading up to this point and shes still struggling. shes still a cop to bring in more money for herself and the schmidt's until she can find a new job and after being called to the station to deal with a delinquent kid she for some reason has to transport him somewhere, or shes called to the scene to be the one to take him to the station.

queue something plot related happening where they're interrupted and vanessa has to get to freddys or the schmidt's or something right away and has to take Gregory with her. then more plot stuff happens and Gregory is stuck with them but just trying to help and survive

vanessa feels so guilty because he was under her watch and also not involved and now hes in danger. so from that guilt plus the guilt of all of the others she turned a blind eye to or covered up or couldnt save she tries her hardest to protect him

queue found family with the two sibling duos. vanessa said something along the lines of "you have abby and that's more than I can say" so imagine if she could say she has Gregory! maybe later its revealed that Gregory is a homeless orphan kid so shes able to actually take him in. they would bond enough over the course of the movies events plus probably some sort of moment where she blurts out her true intentions and why shes trying so hard and that makes them closer.

[machinavellian]

ok but you don't understand how much i NEED jonas to just happen to be at bedrock now. to blow off steam, to feel less alienated by his situation. jonas you're only 30 you belong in the club too. with phineas. in the champagne room.

[grinchwrapsupreme]

book runs based on tv shows are usually mediocre at best, like star trek, torchwood, doctor who, etc etc, but i would give anything to get a book run of the BBC Ghosts hotel i need to know what shenanigans those guys get up to in there

[lululeighsworld]

haha extremely emetwol coded thought but can you imagine the fucking lump that would form in emet's throat upon meeting the wol if azem, at some in the unsundered world, had asked emet if he would still love them if they were a mere fraction of the person they currently are

[monitorkernelaccess]

I think it probably is more likely that Falin chimera was purposely trying to disarm Laios by crying for help, rather than that part actually being genuine. Cause it happens at a moment when she’s temporarily disarmed from being electrocuted and then she does make a smug face afterwards. But I’m sentimental and I Want To Believe

Uhh it could also maybe be both? Like both an intentional tactic (from the dragon side?) and also a sign that at least some part of Falin is in there and wants to be saved

The way they animate it, her eyes go from dragon-like slitted pupils to normal round pupils as she says it. And then a tear falls from one eye, while the other eye stays completely dry

Looking at all that again with a bit more context and possibly a clearer mind, that looks like it’s all to make the ruse look more realistic. If it were more of an outburst as I originally believed (or was trying to convince myself), then the pupils wouldn’t have changed probably? It seems like an intentional move

In addition to the pupil change, the single tear seems forced as well. Like she could only muster up one fake tear while the other eye remained completely dry.

On the other hand…it’s kinda hard to force tears at all, especially so quickly. And if we imagine for the moment that the tear was genuine, could the fact that it only fell from one eye mean that only half of her was crying? Like maybe the dragon is really mostly in control, but it let Falin out as an emotional manipulation tactic. Meaning that the cry was both genuine and just a combat strategy/self-defense measure.

And I’m still not sure what to make of the fact that she pushes Laios out of the way before crushing Kabru. Like was it just an accident then? Or is it more just a side effect of Laios being essentially the main character and no one in the main party gets killed in that scene? Or…could it still be that maybe, deep down, Falin doesn’t want to hurt her brother?

[pink-tk-a-latte]

Ooh, got it! One more thing (because I am admittedly deranged-). Fyozai, is that ship a no-go for you or would you be cool with writing for them? Also, just Fyodor in general XD. I've caught up on the anime but am only about halfway through the manga so I don't know how old that bitch is, I genuinely cannot tell LMAO-

-🫧 Anon~!

I’m cool with Fyozai!! Probably would struggle with the characterization of these mysterious ahh quirky evil geniuses, but as long as I have some inspo I can do it!!

[bullagit]

i think a not-insignificant amount of the heartbreak crowley’s feeling in the end is  because he’s finally truly understanding that what’s happening with aziraphale (as he perceives it) isn’t something that he can save him from.

[gun-chucks]

hi me & @dndnerd1609 were discussing "oh what if trans arthur" because we are both trans and love projecting and see while i dont headcanon arthur as such i did come up with a way it could work, almost as a thought expiriment sort of thing.

to keep it simple, arthur seahorse dad & self isolates, comes up with a lie about his "husband" pre transition, that hes a composer and a recluse, basically describing canon arthur. post faroes birth he states that he is the husband his "wife" [past self] spoke of, and that she died in childbirth [covers up his past self]- this does make faroes death a liiittle more traumatic imo but it also explains the coldness behind "faroes mother".

and kayne? oh hes just an ally hes not gonna out arthur to john thats why he said arthur met someone/j

but no this is all like. thought expiriment. heres how trans arthur can win #slay